The third choice in character creation is your Past. And although I compared it to D&D backgrounds from recent editions, those tend to be nebulous excuses for a couple of skill bumps, whereas Pasts are more "most people aren't wandering adventurers; how did it come to this, you poor fool?"
- Fugitive: Justly or no, the law says you'll be held to account. But the law's arm isn't long enough to follow you along the branches of the World-Tree.
- You ARE: Branded — widely recognisable as a criminal punishment, and inconveniently placed to keep hidden.
- You HAVE: A weapon that's been used to kill.
- You KNOW: The location of something stolen or hidden — treasure? Bodies? Escapees?
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Survivor: Doomed love, family tragedy, plague, disaster — however large or small your place in the world was, whatever it was, you're all that's left of it. Better not to stay nor attempt to live in the ruin of it.
- You ARE: Sworn to never allow a similar tragedy to befall another.
- You HAVE: A keepsake, all but worthless in its own right, more valuable to you than your own life.
- You KNOW: Exactly what in the world you value, exactly what you believe is right and wrong, and exactly what you are capable of.
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Fortune-seeker: A small town, the saying goes, is a vast hell. Or perhaps your family was a curse and a prison. Or you were born into a church which reviles something you can no longer hide inside yourself. There's better out there, surely, if you can only find it.
- You ARE: Still trapped, for now, in the box you had to hide yourself inside to survive them this long.
- You HAVE: The tiny secret treasures, and undiscardable emotional dead weights, of a life spent hiding in plain sight.
- You KNOW: How to read a situation, seeing the gradients of power and the loci of abuse as clear as a game of cat's-cradle.
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Service: All you knew was duty, and the structure that comes with it. A uniform — soldier, sailor, chambermaid? — some specific skills, and a hierarchy with a clear place for you. And now, willingly or otherwise, you are free.
- You ARE: Masterful at managing the experience that people with actual or perceived power over you have of wielding it.
- You HAVE: enough knowledge and hard-earned goodwill to slip in and out of the stables and sculleries of places closed to you.
- You KNOW: the webs of interstitial, subordinate power that operate invisibly but indispensibly to those of official power.
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Downfall: You had wealth, power, prestige. Bad luck, poor judgement, the wrong crowd, the shifting of political winds — it's all gone now, and so, for the sake of your hide, have you.
- You ARE: Skilled at the arts of the highborn — duelling, gossiping, flattering, slandering...and most vital, when to do which.
- You HAVE: An emblem of your elevated station. Worth little now, but perhaps enough to coast on in provincial parts.
- You KNOW: People, in high places and low, and enough dirt to get them to do something for you...once.
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Hellbent: Some hungers can't be sated. Some restlessness can't be settled. Some rage can't be quenched. Some self-destruction can't be averted. Whatever drive burns within you, you are a hot, bright spectacle, and likely to be as brief as a flaming coal.
- You ARE: Frighteningly intense when in direct pursuit of your drive.
- You HAVE: A finely-honed set of possessions, containing nothing that doesn't serve your relentless progress.
- You KNOW: That your meteoric path will result in your utter success, a terrible death, or both.
